Affliliate Marketing

Being in college usually means you have no money to spare. I know what it’s like, I was a college student not too long ago. I’ll admit it, I probably had the extra time to get a real job, but I also knew I could scrape by on birthday money and the occasional odd job. I also remember the feeling right before I had to pay off my credit card… it was the feeling of, “Oh crap, I actually don’t think I have enough money this time.”

I was always looking for ways to earn some extra money… but mostly ways to earn extra money that didn’t require a lot of work, would pay fairly well, and that I could do when I had the time. Here are some ways that are perfect for college students to earn money online.

1. InboxDollars
I made about $95 in one semester with this website. It was easy to do because I always had my laptop on me, so I was always checking my email. All you have to do is click on a link in an email to view an ad. You get paid $0.03 per email (which adds up). I also clipped some coupons from their site and got paid $0.10 for every coupon I used. Lastly, I referred my friends using a link they give you once you sign up. A lot of my college friends signed up and I never heard anyone complain about the essentially free money.

2. “Get a Free… Site”
People usually brush past these sites as scams, but you’d be surprised to find out that they actually work. I got a free iPod (yes, when there weren’t any iPods with touchscreen yet!). These offers work out really well when you’re in college because you most likely know a bunch of people, college kids like new tech gear for free, and you’re probably just itching to use the new credit card you just got.

Here’s how these deals work and how you can make out on top:

1. You submit your info (you basically create a login)

2. You complete a few trial offers. You are usually allowed to cancel after the initial FREE, or very close to free, trial period. That’s what I did. I canceled the day before the trial period ended with no questions asked. I was charged a total of $9.99 for all the trials I completed.

3. Get a few friends to complete the offers as well by giving them your referral link. I found that showing them the trials are actually free, or nearly free, and you signed up for them with no problems helps get rid of the skepticism.

4. Get your free item in the mail. I have to say, I was extremely surprised when my iPod showed up. Of course I had been telling my friends that I was 100% sure it was a legit offer. Obviously, I was lying. I thought it wasn’t going to work but I didn’t have much to lose. When it actually worked I bragged to all my friends and about 10 people I knew did the offers and referred their friends and ended up with iPods too.

5. Once you get your item, brag to your friends. Then find another cool offer to complete and this time your friends will have no problem completing the offers too. Once you get bored of your item, sell it on eBay.

Here’s one of those offers for you to get started on:

3. MTurk
This is a site run by Amazon. People post small jobs like finding contact info, categorizing a picture, or transcribing an mp3. They pay you per job done. Usually categorizing a picture will fetch you $0.02. It takes about a second or two to categorize the pictures so you can easily complete a few hundred in an hour. It a great way to earn a few extra dollars while you’re sitting in class… I mean, during your free time.

4. SurveySavvy
There are hundreds of paid survey websites out there, but I’d have to argue that SurveySavvy alone. Then I referred my friends and made even more!

5. Social Marketing
Since just about every college kid on the face of the Earth has a FaceBook profile and a million friends, social marketing is a great way to earn money. Look for ads on Craigslist asking for young adults to make posts about products. I know some kids who make $20.00 every time they make a status update about a product. A great way to put yourself in a good position for social marketing is to get as many friends as you can. Remember that kid you went to kindergarten with for one week? Friend him. Companies want to see that you have a ton of friends so their message will get out there.

It seems counter-intuitive to say that you can make money with a service that charges you for every click it generates. For those of you who don’t know, Google Adwords is a service that allows you to create an ad and choose keywords for when you want your ad to appear. The ultimate goal is to have your ad show up in search results when a customer is ready to by or sign up for a service and it just looking for a link to get them there. More >

The most lucrative way to make money online is to refer people to products and services. The only problem is, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Once you figure out the right way to do it, getting referrals can be easy, but it takes a long time and a lot of mistakes to get to that point. More >

If you’ve ever looked into being an online affiliate you’ve probably run across ClickBank at some point. ClickBank is probably one of the biggest affiliate earning sources on the internet, but is it the best? More >

I find that one of the hardest things to do with making money online is gaining referrals. It’s so frustrating to see that some people have hundreds and hundreds of active referrals while I’m striving just to get a few. How do these people gain referrals? Where do you even start to gain referrals? Try these five steps to gaining referrals and you’ll be on your way to becoming a referral master!

1.) Refer Your Friends and Family! I know, it seems wrong to try and recruit your friends and family, atleast for me I just get a weird feeling. However, if it’s a program I truly believe in I have no problem recommending it to my friends and maybe earn a little money. Friends and family are always a sure bet when trying to gain referrals. They trust you, they value your opinion, and most of all, they have to try it because they can never say no to you! Just don’t try and refer them to a program that is malicious or ill formed; not only will you hear about it but you’ll also lose some of their trust.

2.) Use Social Networking One of the fastest and easiest ways to refer a lot of people is by sending them a message through a social networking site. Using Facebook or MySpace can help you gain hundreds and hundreds of referrals with no upfront costs and barely any time. Send a message to all of your friends and I bet you’ll get atleast a few referrals. Make the message personable and straight to the point. Let the website or program market itself, you just have to do the suggesting.

3.) Trade referrals in a Forum This may not be the greatest way to gain tons of referrals, however it does work. There are some online forums where you can connect with others who are trying to make money online just like you. You can trade referrals with people in these forums. For instance, you may need a referral for InboxDollars while someone else needs one for SendEarnings. If you sign up under their referral link and they sign up under yours and as long as both of you remain active, you have completed a successful trade. A good forum to connect with others would be one like GetPaidForum.

4.) Rent an Email List This is one of the best ways to gain numerous referrals. Unfortunately it also one fo the most expensive. Renting a good email list can cost as much as $250 to send out around 50,000 emails. The upfront cost may be high, but the return could be higher. You also have to be careful when choosing an email list. Some claim to have targeted readers and only cost $100 or less per 1 million emails… this seems fishy, mostly because it is. Paying $100 to send out 10,000 truly targeted emails is worth more than sending out 1 million possible targeted emails. Also make sure your ad/email is effective. Send out a test of it (usually under 1,000 emails) and see which ad does best. Using this method you can gain thousands of referrals.

5.) Make a Referral Website A really effective way of gaining referrals is to make a referral website or landing page. The upfront costs are fairly low and, if marketed correctly, you can gain endless referrals. All you have to do is pick a domain name and get hosting for your site. A good place to buy a domain name and get hosting would be a site like 1and1.com. These types of hosting sites offer packages where you can get a domain included in the hosting and pay a minimal $4 a month for great hosting service.

Once you have your domain name and hosting settled you have to create the content. You have to decide which program, or how many programs, you want to try and gain referrals for. Make sure all of your content is original and trustwrthy. Submit it to traffic exchange website like autohits.dk or linkreferral.com. These sites will help boost your site’s ranking and maybe even attract a few potential referrals.

Don’t forget to make sure you market your site in every way you can. Tell friends about it, post about it on other people’s blogs, write about it in forums. Wherever you can tell people about your site, tell them. It’s a surefire way to gain referrals.

I wish you the best of luck on gaining your referrals! Tell everyone about your experience! Leave a comment below!

Of all the ways to make money online writing posts in your blog for advertisers is probably the most lucrative. It’s fairly simple, it only takes a few minutes, and it’s a great way to earn extra money and keep your website open.

PayPerPost is a website that is basically a meeting ground for advertisers to connect with bloggers and offer payments for blog posts. They pay very well and almost any blog is accepted as long as it meets their requirements. Not only is PayPerPost a great way for advertisers to drive traffic to their websites, but it’s a great place for bloggers to connect with these advertisers.

Even though I’m being paid by PayPerPost to write this particular post about their site and services, it’s not the reason I’m recommending it as such a great way to earn money online. I’ve made numerous connections through PayPerPost and learned a ton about successful blogging along with making some money that keeps this website free for everyone. With the advertiser’s offerings and a popular blog you could undoubtedly make a lot of money. There are bloggers on PayPerPost who have already made over $20,000!

If you would like to earn a significant amount of legitimate money online, blogging is a great way to get started! Once you get your blog going don’t forget to check out PayPerPost.

It’s no secret that most work from home sites rely on getting referrals to keep their site going. In fact, most webmasters who such sites only created them for the sole purpose of displaying their affiliate links in hopes of gaining referrals. How hard is it to gain referrals and is it worth it to set up a whole site dedicated to it?

Most of you are probably thinking, “Flurbl is a work at home site… don’t they rely on gaining affiliates to keep going?” We have a few affiliate links in some of our posts, but they don’t nearly pay the bills. If we made a site solely dedicated to gaining affiliates, basically a list of affiliate banners, I’m sure that we would make enough money to keep the site up. Personally, I don’t agree with making a site with just affiliate links with the only intention being to gain referrals. It just seems like a cheap, effortless way to try and make some money.

Gaining affiliates is a hard thing to do. Gaining quality referrals that actually make you money is even harder. The best affiliate programs to sign up with are the ones that pay you per sign up. This ensures that no matter who signs up through your link, hard working referral or not, you will earn money. Unfortunately these affiliate programs are hard to come by. It’s understandable as to why such programs are so rare; people would just pay someone who never intends to be a quality member to sign up with that site just to gain a few cents.

The most popular type of affiliate program is the one that pays you a percentage of what your referral makes. It’s a pain in the butt to find quality referrals that will actually make you money with these programs. The best way to gain these quality referrals is to solicit your friends and family.

Your close friends and family are your best shot at making money online. I know, you’re probably thinking what a cruddy thing it is to use your close friends and family to make some money; but hey, think about this way… If it’s a good site that makes you money, they should be able to have the chance to make money too and you can benefit a little.

Using Facebook and MySpace are great ways to gain referrals for affiliate programs. There’s no easier way to connect with your friends than a social networking site. People are much more likely to give a site a try if one of their friends recommends it. Try sending out one of your affiliate links in a message to your friends on a social networking site. You’ll probably gain a few referrals right there.

Should you create a website dedicated to earning referrals?

Yes and no. I know, not the answer you were looking for. If you’re trying to gain affiliates for PTC or paid survey sites, I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you use a free hosting service. The cost of hosting and domain registration is not offset by the amount of referrals that you’ll earn, unless you have a very popular website. However, if you are trying to gain referrals for a company selling a product, such as hosting, it may be beneficial to create a website.

Just remember; only quality referrals make you money. This is one situation where it’s quality, not quantity.

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